Overall a brilliant first try by William. The portrait of Joan la Pucelle is not without British emperial bias, but she nevertheless was seen as an intelligent and morally conscious individual, who only became desparate at the last moment. I was especially fond of the bantering between Lord Talbot and Countess of Auvergne. The theatrical effect of the contrast of his stature with his aura of confidence is highly effective in glorifying him as the bravest person in the whole play. The King himself was not without his moments. He appeared rather untempted by the prospect of marriage, for example. Of course William was not going to speak lowly of his own monarchical ancestors, still from the complexity of the power structure in court at the time, it would take quite a capable soul to balance the interests of the Lords. Talbot and his son seemed to be rather good at persuasive reasoning, even on matters as critical as who is going to die in whose stead. John, as the son is known by, eventually died with his father, but it was an honorable death and they seemed to have fully enjoyed it. The French are inevitably depicted as cowardly, resourceless, and traitorlike. Even Joan la Pucelle remarked the similarity between the Duke of Winchester who defaulted to the French and French people themselves. The name of Charles Dauphne just sounds funny. And the fact that Joan la Pucelle has allegedly had affairs with many men, including Dauphne, Alencon, and even the father of Margarette. I am sure the French readers will be wholesomely pissed by this play.